UIInactive guild leader replacement now requires 90 days of absence, up from 30 days. Ascent to the rank of guild leader is now only available to guild members at Rank 2, 3, or 4.

Click the cut to read more about the customer support changes in 4.3.4, as well as the latest class beta feedback on Affliction warlocks and Mistweaver monks. There's also blue posts on the Pandaren models, the destruction of Theramore, balancing 10 and 25-player raids, and challenges for class designers in the beta.

Customer Support Changes

Blizzard Entertainment

With the upcoming World of Warcraft Patch 4.3.4, there will be a few changes to the way you interact with Customer Support in the game. We are implementing brand new interfaces to report harassment, naming violations, and potential cheating. By building these reporting methods directly into the game client, you can automatically gather information on who you are reporting and what you're reporting them for. In addition, we've also added options to report bugs and submit suggestions for World of Warcraft.

Reporting a Player

If you encounter a player using an offensive name or foul language, violating our chat policies, or cheating, you can quickly right-click on their name in chat, and select Report Player For. If you have the character targeted, you can right-click their portrait and select Report Player.

Submitting a Bug

If you have stumbled upon a bug, you can report it to the World of Warcraft Development & Quality Assurance teams, directly through the Customer Support window. In the Customer Support interface, click Submit Bug and fill out the requested information.

Note: If a bug has seriously affected your character in a way that requires Game Master intervention (lost items, reputation, raid progress, etc.), Open a Ticket so we may investigate the situation.

Submitting a Suggestion

If you wish to provide feedback to the World of Warcraft team, you may do so directly through the Customer Support window. In the Customer Support interface, click Submit Suggestion and fill out the requested information. Be sure to be as specific and constructive as possible.

Note: By submitting a suggestion, you confirm that the suggestion is your own idea, the idea is not confidential, and you permit Blizzard Entertainment to use the idea publicly with no obligation to compensate you.

J!NX Spring Collection

Blizzard Entertainment

Just in time for the spring season, J!NX presents you with a new collection of World of Warcraft tees! This spring line features newly designed Faction Tees alongside a varied assortment of the reimagined Class Crest designs. Satisfy your anticipation for Mists of Pandaria with brand new apparel from the J!NX World of Warcraft Spring Line!

Pandaren Models

Wryxian

We consider the pandaren models pretty much done: i.e. the distinctive longer tails for female red-coloured pandaren, that we like, are there to stay.

Let's say it like this: we don't want to repeat the female worgen on this one. We don't want to second-guess the design.

This may just be my interpretation and not our company's, but the way I see it is that with many things there's always going to be people that like it exactly how it is — as we do — and those that don't. If we change it, the people who didn't like it before the change might be satisfied by it changing, but there's also the chance they might not be. What's guaranteed, though, is that those who did like it just as it was (usually the silent majority) definitely won't like it being changed.

Theramore and Faction Imbalance

Zarhym

You act as though I don't think there's any disconnect at all, or that all complaints from Alliance players about perceived story imbalances between factions are baseless.

These are fallacies which, as with this one below from you, I was initially biting my thumb at in my post you quoted.

The frustrating thing, though, is that you haven’t just received criticism, but constructive criticism as well. Plenty of people have offered copious amounts of suggestions since even before the release of Cataclysm, and you’ve ignored every single one.

You do everyone on the forums, yourself included, a disservice by making the leap in logic that, because we didn't act upon feedback submitted to us, we ignored it. Many of the suggestions you referenced in your post would've been pretty massive undertakings toward further redesigning the 1-60 experience in Cataclysm. From your point of view, and given how you feel about Alliance design, it's probably a pretty easy call. The decision should've been to make those changes to better flesh out the Alliance and, in particular, worgen story.

But we don't get to do this over, so we have to look at it from a pragmatic standpoint. Regardless of what we know today, it still would've been an incredible risk back then to delay the expansion, just to further redo the 1-60 experience to ensure the Alliance portion cannot be seen as anything other than equivalent (at least) to the Horde portion, in terms of quality. This is not to mention that, to a sadly large extent, the revamp of the 1-60 experience went pretty unnoticed to the average player. The average player has been more concerned about a lack of content at level 85 than what zone story lines ended more in favor of the Horde than vice versa.

And since we weren't going to change the expansion's story partway through purely based on the concern that players didn't feel Thrall was a neutral enough character, we went ahead with our plan.

Now enter Mists development. For months now we've been listening to the Alliance concerns on all types of matters, from lore, to faction pride, to populations, to behavior at BlizzCon, etc. And so many of them are legitimate. We've taken a lot of this to heart while developing the next expansion, while also building upon the larger story that's sure to span many more expansions and even new games (hopefully) down the road.

But then these valid concerns get whittled away and almost lose their meaning as they're put on this tit-for-tat list, where they're used as emotional leverage. And suddenly every little piece of information that comes out regarding future content gets ripped apart to determine exactly where our true motivations and biases lay. It actually increases the social divide between players, inflames the loudest people on both sides of the aisle, and prevents us from getting any reasonable word in edgewise without being cut down for our perceived ignorance in all matters relating to Alliance player wants/needs, if not our malicious attempt to outright make the Horde the cooler faction by story and design.

While both sides have done some pretty great and pretty terrible things in the stories past, there's a reason we don't make one the definitively evil or definitely good side (don't point to a few moments on a recent timeline to refute this point -- I'm talking big picture). Playing with friends aside, it's still a goal of ours to make sure that you're playing whatever faction and race you think is coolest, or which one you identify with or enjoy most. To think we're actively designing the game any other way is to get caught up in this debate so much so that you lose sight of what the game is all about.

I'm proud to be all gnome when it's time to crawl dungeons with my Alliance friends. I'm excited to represent goblins when it's time to collect bounties with my Horde friends. That said, my ultimate affinity is for my gnome and the Alliance, if not purely because that's how I ultimately jumped on the Warcraft train. :)

And I'm sure plenty of you out there would spit on both of those races. And -- since these words have never come back to bite anyone in the past -- I say bring 'em on.

Jewelcrafting Mounts

Wryxian

So I am not sure offhand if any of this information is new or not, but here it is anyhow just in case any of it is news to you.

These will be Jewelcrafter recipes and we're not actually completely decided on whether there will be a recipe for each colour, or whether the creation of one will produce one of the four colours at random.

As I think you already know, the black one will be a little different. It's a flying mount and it'll be created by combining the other four mount colours together.

We're estimating that the cost of creating these mounts will be very expensive. ;)

Paladin: Holy DPS

Ghostcrawler

We don't want Holy to be a DPS spec, but we do want Holy paladins to be able to do reasonable damage when solo, to keep up pressure in PvP, or when grouped in moments when healing isn't critical. Holy Shock and Denounce are supposed to provide that damage, but their numbers are abysmally weak at the moment. We will fix.

The above is relevant to all healer specs mind you.

Monk: Mistweaver Feedback

Ghostcrawler

We don't want to need Agility.

We don't want that either. Mistweavers should use Intellect leather. We just have to make sure that any of their damage-dealing abilities don't make Agi attractive.

Warlock: Affliction Feedback

Ghostcrawler

We are discussing removing the limit one on Agony. We think Malefic Grasp already solves the same problem of wanting to make sure that focusing on a single target can be as effective as multi-dotting the room.

(As an aside, it's fine to multi-dot the room, but we want to avoid a situation where a dot class is either terrible with one target or doubles everyone else's damage when there are multiple targets.)

If we make the Agony change, then Soul Swap could move Agony and UA and feel worth doing (assuming Seeds already covers Corruption in an AE environment). It's also possible we could just bring down the Soul Swap cooldown as well.

10 vs 25s Player Raids

Zarhym

We'll continue making adjustments as necessary to keep 10- and 25-player raids within a relative alignment, in terms of time investment, difficulty and rewards. It may never be perfect, but we still see interest in both raid sizes for different reasons. And ultimately we'll continue designing 25-player raids as long as there are a decent number of guilds interested in the format. We've seen no evidence as of yet that such interest is waning to any degree that should cause us great concern.

We tend to begin raid design around 25 players anyway before tuning for the various sizes and difficulties. That, when combined with our intent to carry on with 25-player Raid Finder group sizes, makes it very much worth our time to continue designing 25-player raids.

Regardless of what players' personal preferences or opinions are regarding the varied raid formats in World of Warcraft, we don't see removing options as a smart choice in the foreseeable future.

Class Changes in Mists

Ghostcrawler

This is a really tricky space for class designers to navigate. We see a lot of "why won't you fix my issues?" pleas mixed in with "I don't want to relearn how to play." Neither opinion is right or wrong of course, and there is a lot of subjectivity about what each mean. "I only wanted you to change A and B, not C and D" is posted in the same thread as "Please don't change A!" Even the OP above had to add "don't change... except for...." :)

The talent changes do give us the opportunity to clean up (in our parlance) various rotations because we now have the concept of spec spells. Previously, we often had to jump through hoops to keep players from having to use awkward yet higher DPS rotations.

To use one example, we didn't want Fury warriors to have to "cast" Slams and most Fury warriors didn't want to either (meaning we weren't just smacking players' wrists for finding a way to play that we had not envisioned). But any time we needed to buff Slam for Arms, we risked Fury side effects unless we messed with the Bloodsurge proc for Fury to keep Slam the same for them. In Mists we can just make Slam an Arms spec spell to avoid that issue completely. There are many other comparisons, especially for rogues and warlocks who often incorporated many more buttons than they needed to do to execute a rotation just because those buttons were there.

Similarly, it gives us a chance to clean up action bars a little by doing things like streamlining the number of heals non-healers need. Shadow needs some heals to feel like a priest, but it doesn't need the repertoire that a Holy priest has.

But these changes, made with the best of intentions, still count as changes. Returning players, especially players returning from early Cataclysm or Lich King still have to learn them. I had a warrior player the other day ask me why he needed Heroic Throw and Heroic Leap because they were just extra buttons on his bars, yet I also imagined the outrage if we tried to prune them. :(

We really try not to make change for changes sake (and you are free to call us on it if you think you see it). Every change is to solve some problem, likely a problem that representatives of the various classes and specs have advocated at one point or another. (Here is where players will typically say "I have been an X for 8 years, and I never remember seeing someone ask for Y" - please don't turn the rest of this thread into that).

We have also been trying to limit large class changes to expansions and not patches, even though that policy frustrates players as well who don't want to wait many months for a more dynamic rotation or a quality of life improvement. It's a design philosophy challenge for sure.

The best advice I can give you (any of you) is to offer specifics. Generic "I don't like my guy anymore" doesn't give us much indication of what we would have to do to get you to want to play him again. If there is a change you don't like, let us know, but be prepared to defend that position against other players who may disagree with you. We're not actually looking for players to vote on changes, but it is helpful for us to see both sides of a debate.

Also remember that nearly every change at this stage is made for fun and not for balance. That means our hands aren't tied. But it also means we are making decisions based on something really subjective upon which players very possibly are not going to agree.I find the discussion really interesting, especially when it sticks to the topic of "How much change is appropriate?" and doesn't try and discuss every single class in one thread.

I did want to clarify a few points just to make sure we are all on the same page.

But for the 2nd expansion in a row you have significant healing changes and added tanking changes on top of it. I think for the larger part of the player base, you have made that a huge frustration because 5 levels is not enough. You are going to be balancing a class around level 90 but leveling from 85 to 90 is going to bring frustration on to a lot of people.

We haven't changed healing. Healing should feel really similar to how it felt in Cataclysm, but a little more forgiving when you're still in greens and blues.

We do want to give tanks more control over their survivability, but that's because we've really toned down the effort it takes to maintain threat, so we want tanks to have something upon which to focus their attention.

We also spend a great deal of effort balancing at 85. As we have mentioned before, we want everyone who logs in when the expansion goes live to have about the same amount of damage and healing that they have today in Cataclysm. The sources of some of that damage and healing will change, but overall the numbers should be familiar.

2012 Arena Pass--Seven Days

Blizzard Entertainment

The 2012 World of Warcraft Arena Pass will officially begin in just seven days. Starting April 24, players will be able to log in to a dedicated Arena sandbox to set up their characters and teams.

Players will test their strength against other like-minded battle worn heroes through intense arena combat. Players in the Arena Pass will be eligible to earn Murkimus, the Armored Murloc in-game pet, as a reward for participating in the event. If they’re able to claw their way into the top 1000 teams, they’ll also earn the exclusive “Vanquisher” title for their live characters.

Don’t forget, players that register for this year’s World of Warcraft Arena Pass will also gain exclusive access to a level-90 Arena Pass realm after the account is upgraded with a Mists of Pandaria expansion license.

If you have any questions or would like more details, please read the FAQ and remember to check back on the World of Warcraft site for more updates. More Arena Pass specifics can be found in the Terms of Use.

Twitter and the Annual Pass

Zarhym

Why do people like Zarhym continue committing to this lie about beta access order. Why not just tell the truth?

We've stated in the past there are several ways by which candidates are invited to test Mists of Pandaria beta. All we've said with regard to Annual Pass holders is that they'll be invited before people who submitted through our opt-in process, and that they'll be invited in order of Annual Pass purchase date and total cumulative play time on the account.

So here are a few things I didn't feel like typing on Twitter to one person all but accusing us of a conspiracy:

1) You don't have access to enough information to determine with certainty the way in which each and every person flagged for beta access was invited.

2) Even if you were able to prove that one Annual Pass holder was invited a) in an Annual Pass invite wave, and b) before someone who purchased their Annual Pass earlier, has more cumulative play time on their account, and was also invited in an Annual Pass wave, that still doesn't prove there's a systemic flaw in the way in which all accounts are being flagged.

3) We're aware that the terminology we used when initially announcing the Annual Pass feature was misleading. We've already stated we regret the way that went down. That said, we had no reason to falsely claim we'd be distributing invites in a way we had no intention of actually following. There's just no good reason to lie about that and hope people wouldn't catch on.

Comments

Comment by bdonski

Exciting stuff! Jewelcrafting mounts - absolute yes! Combining colored mounts to make a cool flying one - sounds like a great idea. I really hope it won't be too expensive to make though.

Oh, and yes - for the horde! =)

Comment by moosandra

on 2012/04/17 16:48:28

Still waiting for leatherworking to get something nice. no mount, pet, fun vanity items. Please, leather balls are not fun. -_-

Comment by baradiel

on 2012/04/17 17:29:40

I really like the new Customer Support, it's better now.

And nice job on this Perc!

Comment by civgw

on 2012/04/17 17:46:54

This is not to mention that, to a sadly large extent, the revamp of the 1-60 experience went pretty unnoticed to the average player. The average player has been more concerned about a lack of content at level 85 than what zone story lines ended more in favor of the Horde than vice versa.

Finally, they are starting to admit that the 1-60 revamp was not the great success that they have been portraying for ages. A lot of time and effort spent for nothing really.

Comment by Flitzy

on 2012/04/17 18:26:07

This is not to mention that, to a sadly large extent, the revamp of the 1-60 experience went pretty unnoticed to the average player. The average player has been more concerned about a lack of content at level 85 than what zone story lines ended more in favor of the Horde than vice versa.

Finally, they are starting to admit that the 1-60 revamp was not the great success that they have been portraying for ages. A lot of time and effort spent for nothing really.

Why do you say it was for nothing? I don't really care about max level or dungeons or raids.

If they hadn't redone any of the 1-60 content, there really would be no reason for me to keep playing. There's a good portion of people that play alts and care not for max level - designing just for max level players would be a mistake. They can't ignore levelling content.

Comment by Nathanyal

on 2012/04/17 18:50:41

This is not to mention that, to a sadly large extent, the revamp of the 1-60 experience went pretty unnoticed to the average player. The average player has been more concerned about a lack of content at level 85 than what zone story lines ended more in favor of the Horde than vice versa.

Finally, they are starting to admit that the 1-60 revamp was not the great success that they have been portraying for ages. A lot of time and effort spent for nothing really.

They didn't admit to that. They said the average player doesn't notice the changes to the zones. They're either in a hurry to get to level cap so they skip the text and just does what it asks or they don't even bother to quest and just do BGs and dungeons.

They like how it turned out. What they don't like is that most players don't enjoy it as much as they do.

Comment by Kanariya

on 2012/04/17 19:49:04

They didn't admit to that. They said the average player doesn't notice the changes to the zones. They're either in a hurry to get to level cap so they skip the text and just does what it asks or they don't even bother to quest and just do BGs and dungeons.

Which is a failure on Blizzard's part for the amount of times they've buffed the experience granted by level 1 to 60 quests. Even without Heirlooms and the guild perks, in most cases, you will out-level a zone before you finish its quest line. Blizzard took the wrong approach by buffing experience across the board when the bonuses should really be completely baked into Heirlooms. This would allow new players to actually get the leveling experience people had in this game, and alts to level up quickly.

Comment by ReverendJ

on 2012/04/17 19:57:29

Could someone explain the tail situation.

Do female red pandas have tails and black and white ones have stubs or do both have tails or do females get to pick separate from color schemes?

Comment by ReverendJ

on 2012/04/17 19:58:36

They didn't admit to that. They said the average player doesn't notice the changes to the zones. They're either in a hurry to get to level cap so they skip the text and just does what it asks or they don't even bother to quest and just do BGs and dungeons.

Which is a failure on Blizzard's part for the amount of times they've buffed the experience granted by level 1 to 60 quests. Even without Heirlooms and the guild perks, in most cases, you will out-level a zone before you finish its quest line. Blizzard took the wrong approach by buffing experience across the board when the bonuses should really be completely baked into Heirlooms. This would allow new players to actually get the leveling experience people had in this game, and alts to level up quickly.

As a relatively out of date player when Cata came out I completely agree.

Comment by Interest

on 2012/04/17 20:11:23

I really like the new Customer Support, it's better now.

And nice job on this Perc!

I greatly agree. I'm definitely gonna put it to good use...

I wonder if beta will have some CS stuff too.

Comment by RyuugaMuradin

on 2012/04/17 20:18:05

Ooh, looking forward to creating a red panda in MoP, especially with the long tail! <3

And I'm happy the Customer Support system was updated. :) Especially now that we can report players for things other than spam.

Comment by splemati

on 2012/04/17 21:51:57

This is not to mention that, to a sadly large extent, the revamp of the 1-60 experience went pretty unnoticed to the average player. The average player has been more concerned about a lack of content at level 85 than what zone story lines ended more in favor of the Horde than vice versa.

Finally, they are starting to admit that the 1-60 revamp was not the great success that they have been portraying for ages. A lot of time and effort spent for nothing really.

I personally disagree. I was rolling around with only my hunter at max level (yes, *lulzhuntard* and all that) with my alts at maybe level 20, if they were that lucky, until the Cataclysm struck. Leveling was just not interesting enough to me to truly commit to another character. With the zone revamps, I have 3 max characters created after the Cataclysm that joined my fabulous belf hunter (/hair flip) because I had way more fun leveling in the new zones for both Alliance and Horde.

Comment by corrocan

on 2012/04/17 22:52:09

Holy pallys getting damage buff eh? Get ready for angry forum posts.

Comment by Excelion

on 2012/04/17 23:25:27

I think we can look back on Patch 4.3.4 and remember it was the ticket-load patch. =p Probably one of the most uneventful X.X.X patches in WoW history, but the report features will help out a lot, and streamline ticket responses.

Comment by IcyFrozen

on 2012/04/18 00:34:06

Now enter Mists development. For months now we've been listening to the Alliance concerns on all types of matters, from lore, to faction pride, to populations, to behavior at BlizzCon, etc. And so many of them are legitimate. We've taken a lot of this to heart while developing the next expansion, while also building upon the larger story that's sure to span many more expansions and even new games (hopefully) down the road.

I don't dispute that the message seems to have been recieved by the designers and the faction imbalance issue is begining to become a prioirty but at the same time many of us are looking at what has been revealed about Mists and are far from reassured. In terms of Lore and storyline it looks like Garrosh is going to be running the show. His paranoia and tyrannical rulership seems to be a center plot, leading to the Fall of Theramore and the Siege of Ogrimmar. So lets do the math. Alliance loses another region, Dustwallow Marsh and in theory The Barrens (which the Horde assumedly would need to conquer to get to Theramore or we would lose once the primary stronghold/port is lost anyway). The storyline centers upon the Horde leader with all the dramatic events upon them. The final battle will be in Ogrimmar, which storyline-wise makes no sense for the Alliance. The Horde rising up against their leader and trying to oust him makes sense. The Alliance suddenly besieging Ogrimmar would require a military push that the Alliance has not achieved.. ever.. Even the other Horde races would be unlikely to invite the Alliance into their lands to help take down Garrosh, so again we're playing content which was not meant for us. Even the intro discusses how the Horde is destroying Alliance fleets left right and center (off Tanaris and Tol Barad, i believe) and how the loss of only a few ships to a counterattack enrages Garrosh. So he wipes out entire alliance fleets and we take down one or two off the cobbled-up horde junkers? Really? Lets not forget the most obvious fact that this whole storyline is simply paving the road for the inevitable return of Thrall, the psoterboy of Horde dominance.

I remember a quote from Blizzcon that this expansion would have content to address the unbalance for the Alliance, but what is failing here is giving the horde a bunch of exciting new content, even if it is the crumbling of the empire, is STILL horde content. Its still storylines, lore and interest for the Horde. Yes the horde falls apart a bit, but they get a bunch of juicy content resolving it. The Alliance so far appears to have nothing but more reeling from the massive onslaught of the great and mighty Horde and getting only a minor victory in killing Garrosh in a non-sensical endgame battle. Same old story, new villian.

You want Alliance players to feel rewarded? Give us content of us taking the fight back to the Forsaken. Alliance players want to deal with the loss of Hillsbrad and Gilneas and the encroachment of the Forsaken. We want to see the Alliancce with enough military backbone that we feel the Alliance could win the war. Give us a few storyline characters we can unite behind, its not that players take a long time to warm up to new characters its that the Alliance characters are hollow, poorly concieved and pretty much an after thought behind the Varok Saurfangs and Garroshes of the world. Look at Catacylsm.. Harrison Jones? Really? A cheesy movie knock off. Darius Crowly in Gilneas had hope but he's been abandoned in Gilneas as leader the liberation front, a storyline entirely forgotten.

So here's my suggestion. Next expansion add on to Outland. Another continent floating around having surviving the collapse of Draenor that was previously too far away and recently drifted or was drawn closer. Perfect opportunity to finally resolve the Turalyon storyline while giving us an Alliance hero that we can believe in. Assuming of course you don't make him Horde...

Comment by Adamsm

on 2012/04/18 00:58:32

Could someone explain the tail situation.

Do female red pandas have tails and black and white ones have stubs or do both have tails or do females get to pick separate from color schemes?

Only Red Panda female models have the tails.....which they left off the males for some reason.

Comment by Maelynn

on 2012/04/18 03:10:43

It's a flying mount and it'll be created by combining the other four mount colours together.

By your mounts combined, I am Captain SparklyPanther! *whoooosh*

=======

I really like the revamped support. Not only the ease with which you can now report certain aspects of players (instead of havingt o fill out a whole ticket and/or having it labelled as 'asbuse'), but also the suggestions. I really hope Blizzard will look into the suggestions made this way, as I know quite some people (myself included) who have some good ideas but cba to go to the forums and find the suggestion thread wotsit.

Comment by Reebs

on 2012/04/18 09:07:56

Could someone explain the tail situation.

Do female red pandas have tails and black and white ones have stubs or do both have tails or do females get to pick separate from color schemes?

Only Red Panda female models have the tails.....which they left off the males for some reason.